Ice refrigerator



2 Sheets-Sheet 1 May 24, 1938. c. E. H. FRYKDAHL ICE REFRIGERATOR Filed June 18, 1936 igg A N 4 o oo opoo 00 00 0 00 0o oofo V/ V W m a x i m May 24, 1938. c FRYKDAHL 7 2,118,185

I ICE REFRIGERATOR 1 Filed June 18, 1936 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 iatented May 24, 1938 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Application June 18, 1936, Serial No. 85,875

90laims.

This invention relates to ice refrigerators and its general object is to facilitate the operation of introducing a cake of ice into the ice compartment and upon the ice rack for initial icing and r; for re-icing.

Refrigerators are now being made with the ice supporting bars of the ice rack located in a plane below the sill of the ice compartment door so that when the cake of ice in use has melted down 11 to or about the level of the sill a fresh cake of ice can be slid into place on top of the cake then in use. In one type of refrigerator for which my invention is adapted the ice rack is located between the ice compartment and the food coml partment, and the circulation of air in the food compartment contacts the ice at the bottom of the cake and the cake melts level, or substantially level, at the top so that if care is exercised in re-icing as soon as the top of the cake is at or about the level of the door sill the fresh cake can he slid into place very easily on the cake in the ice compartment. The rack bars are located below the level of the door sill and in re-icing the cake may be left partly supported on the top of the front rail of the ice rack and in a tilted position on the ice cake in the refrigerator. In initial icing the ice cake may be unevenly placed on the ice rack bars and left in a tilted position on the ice rack, partly resting on the front rail of the ice rack, or the cake may be slightly oversize and left in a tilted position.

It is desired to have the ice cake rest flat upon the ice rack in initial icing, or upon the ice cake remaining on the rack in re-icing, especially in refrigerators of the under-ice circulation type, one form of which is shown in my copending application Serial No. 69,802, filed March 20, 1936. The object of my invention is to insure that the cake of ice introduced into the ice compart- 4 ment in initial icing or in re-icing shall be re-- ceived and supported on the ice rack in a level position.

Another object is to provide a rack having rack bars located below the level of the door sill of d the ice compartment with bars extending from front to rear thereof and forming skids to receive the ice cake and to support the ice cake temporarily above the other rack bars.

A further object is to provide means whereby my invention can be applied readily to refrigerators now in use.

In the accompanying drawings Fig. l is a vertical sectional view of a portion of a refrigerator showing my invention embodied 55 in the rack thereof;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of the rack shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a sectional view of the rack on the line 3-4 of Fig. 1;

Fig; 4 is a detail enlarged sectional view;

Fig. 5 is a sectional view of a rack showing my 5 invention applied thereto;

Fig. 6 is a sectional view on the line 8-. of Fig. i and Fig. 7 is a perspective view of the attachment employed for embodying my invention in racks now in use.

Referring first to Figs. 1-4, 8 indicates a refrigerator cabinet having an ice compartment 9 and a door l0 therefor, and a food compartment H and a door I 2 therefor. A front ledge l3 and a back ledge H are arranged at the front and at the back of the cabinet between the ice compartment and the food compartment and below the level of the sill ii for the ice compartment door Ill.

The ice rack comprises a front rail I 8, a back rail l1, and a plurality of parallel rack bars l8 secured to and supported on the front and back rails. The ice rack is supported in the cabinet upon the ledges i3 and I 4 with the top of the bars l8 located below the level of the sill I5. The front rail inclines forwardly and is made of sheet metal which is bent over to provide a rounded top It located inward of the sill and preferably just a little above the level of the sill. The front rail of the refrigerator provides a convenient skid rail in introducing the ice cake into the ice compartment. Keepers is are fastened to the back wall of the cabinet and engage openings in the back rail I! to prevent the rack from tilting upward at the back when an ice cake is skidded over the front rail into position on the ice rack or upon a reduced cake remaining upon the rack.

Modern ice refrigerators are made with ice compartments and doors of proper dimensions to receive ice cakes of predetermined weight which are, generaly speaking, of predetermined dimensions. It is important that the ice cake should melt evenly and maintain a substantial level at the top and that the refrigerator should be reiced by the introduction of a fresh cake before the ice in the refrigerator has been exhausted and while a reduced cake of suflicient thickness to cover the ice rack remains. When the top of the ice cake reaches the level of the door sill it will indicate time for re-icing and the thickness of the reduced cake will furnish ample margin of time for this purpose. The rack bars are made of metal and penetrate the ice cake, forming ice fins between the bars, and if the body of the cake completely melts away the ice fins would be separated and finally drop through between the rack bars into the usual drain pan, and waste ice; but if re-icing is done before the body of the ice cake has completely melted away and while the reduced cake is an inch or more in thickness and the fresh cake is placed flatly and evenly on the reduced cake, there will be an adherence between the reduced cake and the fresh cake sufficiently to produce a continual normal operation without separation and dropping of the ice flns when the body of the reduced cake is completely melted. For these reasons it is important, as before stated, that the fresh cake should be placed squarely and flatly upon the rack in initial icing and in re-iclng. The dimensions of the ice cake and of the ice compartment and the door therefor, with a little care on the part of the iceman, insure the square positioning of the ice cake in the ice compartment, but because the rack bars are located a substantial distance below the level of the door sill it is possible to initially ice or to re-ice and leave the cake tilted rearwardly in the ice compartment. And this tilted position may not be readily noticeable to the iceman, especially in re-icing. It is objectionable to have the ice cake tilted in the ice compartment directly upon the rack or upon a reduced cake on the rack because the desired under-ice circulation will not be properly maintained and the cake will melt unevenly and more rapidly and the efliciency of the refrigerator is likely to be impaired.

I provide the rack with skid bars 2| which extend in parallel relation from front to back of the rack. The top of these skid bars is preferably about the level of the sill of the ice compartment door and of the top of the front rail and back rail of the rack. However, I prefer to have the top of the front rail of the rack which provides a skid for the ice cake slightly above the door sill and the skid bars 2|, as shown in Fig. 1. The front rail thus provides a support for the ice cake while it is being inserted in the ice compartment and thereby protects the sill from damage from the cake and facilitates placing the cake properly on the rack.

The skid bars can be made conveniently, as shown in Figs. 1-3, by increasing the height of at least two of the rack bars, and when the ice cake is located upon these two skid bars 2| in initial icing the skid bars will quickly melt into the cake until the latter is resting upon the other bars l8. In re-icing the fresh cake will rest upon the skid bars 2| which rapidly melt therein until the fresh cake rests upon the reduced cake on the bars l8. These skid bars 2i facilitate the operation of positioning the ice cakes squarely in the ice compartment and temporarily support the cake in a level position so that the cake will maintain its square and level position in the refrigerator.

To adapt my invention to refrigerators now in use I provide an attachment, Figs. 5-7, in the form of a frame comprising skid bars 22 secured to the front strip 23 and the back strip 24. This frame is adapted to be placed on the rack of a refrigerator which is not initially equipped with skid bars,- and when so positioned the front strip will rest against the front rail 25, Fig. 5, of the rack. the back strip will rest against the back rail 26 of the rack, and the skid bars 22 will overlap slightly the top of two of the rack bars 21, Fig. 6, to provide skid bars comparable with the skid bars 2| of the unit rack shown in Figs. 1-4. The front strip 23 has a flange 23 and the back strip 24 has a flange 24 which rest upon the rack bars 21 whereby the frame is supported upon the rack, and the frame has slots 28 to engage keepers which are provided on the back wall of a refrigerator cabinet to project over the back rail of the rack bar to keep it from tilting up at the back when an ice cake is skidded into the ice compartment over the front rail.

In both forms of my invention the rack bars and the attachment are made conveniently of galvanized sheet metal. The rack bars are shown in one form which has been found satisfactory but the invention may be used with rack bars or other forms and with racks differing otherwise in construction than herein shown and described. The skid bars receive and support the cake of ice in level position for initial icing and, if they are exposed, for re-icing, and they insure that the ice cake will be positioned levelly with respect to the ice cake when placed in the ice compartment.

I have shown the invention as it may be embodied originally in an ice rack and as it may be adapted by attachment to an existing rack, but

I do not limit the invention to the particular plurality of parallel rack bars, and a pair of skid bars arranged with their tops parallel with and above the rack bars to receive and support a cake of ice.

2. An ice rack for refrigerators comprising a plurality of rack bars secured together in substantially parallel relation, certain of said rack bars being spaced apart and extending above the tops of the other rack bars with the tops of said certain bars in a single plane.

3. An ice rack for refrigerators comprising a front rail and a back rail, rack bars secured to said rails, the tops of certain of said rack bars being adjacent the top of the front rail and the tops of the other rack bars being located below the top of the front rail and the tops of said certain rack bars.

4. An ice rack for refrigerators comprising a front rail and a back rail, and a plurality of rack bars secured at their ends to said rails and arranged in substantially parallel relation, certain of said rack bars having their tops adjacent the tops of the said rails and the tops of the other rack bars being located adjacent the bottoms of said rails.

5. A refrigerator comprising an ice compartment and a door and a door sill therefor, an ice rack comprising a plurality of rack bars, certain of said rack bars having the bottoms thereof in alignment with the bottoms of the other of said rack bars and extending above the tops of the other rack bars, and means for supporting the rack at the bottom of the ice compartment with the tops of said certain rack bars in substantially the same plane with the sill of the door and the tops of the other rack bars substantially below the horizontal plane of the sill of the door.

6. A refrigerator comprising an ice compartment and a door and a door sill therefor, an ice rack comprisin a front rail, a back rail and a plurality of bars connected at their ends to said rails, certain of said rack bars extending above the tops of the other rack bars and having their tops adjacent the top of the front rail, and means for supporting said rack at the bottom of the ice compartment with the tops of the front rail and of said certain rack bars in substantially the same plane with the 'door sill.

7. An ice rack for refrigerators comprising a plurality of rack bars of substantially, inverted U-shaped cross-section secured together and extending in the same direction and in substantially parallel relation, the legs of the U of certain of said rack bars being elongated and the intermediate portion between the legs of the U'of said certain rack bars arranged substantially above the tops of the other rack bars to support a cake of ice. a 1

8. The combination .with an ice rack for a refrige'rator comprising a plurality of rack bars se- V cured together in substantially parallel relation,

of a frame removably positioned upon said rack receive and ment thereupon.

.with 'another of said rack bars to support said frame and hold it against accidental displacement and in position upon said rack.

9. An attachment for the ice rack of a refrigerator; said attachment consisting of a frame comprising a front rail, a back rail, and a pair of skid bars joined together by the front rail and back rail, the tops of "said skid bars lying in a plane below the top of the front rail and the bottoms of said skid bars adapted to engage the ice rack to removably position the attach- CARL EDWARD HARRY FRYKDAHL. 

